The Playboy's Office Romance

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “I didn’t feel like meeting another one of her sorority sisters, so I told her I had a meeting scheduled with you.”

  Bryce was surprised, although he tried not to let it show. Normally, his dad trotted at Monica’s heels like a happy little pup. “Great,” he said. “It’s always good to have an unexpected father and son meeting.”

  James nodded, missing the subtle humor altogether and giving the indoor putting green a studied frown. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

  “Not at all.” As if there would be any point in saying otherwise. He’d been practicing his putt and thinking about Lara despite the mountain of paperwork awaiting his attention. But even if he’d been buried under that mountain, his father would have asked the same question in the exact same way, as if he were in imminent danger of intruding into his sons’ lives at every turn. “I was just pondering a small problem.”

  James perked up. “Anything I can help you with?”

  It would be a sad day when he had to ask his father about women. “Just a little personnel matter.”

  “A woman, huh?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Didn’t have to.” James took the putter from him and eyed the slope of the putting green. “Personnel problems with men are generally about competence. Either they can do the job or they can’t, either they will do the job or they won’t. But with women, you can never discount the emotional factor. Even the most competent want to know they’re loved and appreciated at the same time.” He adjusted the position of the ball, sized up the distance with a keen eye and made the putt, precisely and perfectly. “Hence, my conclusion that if this small problem did not involve a woman, you wouldn’t feel the need to ponder it.”

  “That generalization is on the sexist side, isn’t it, Dad?”

  James shrugged. “Politically incorrect to say aloud, maybe, but true, nonetheless. Women, in or out of the office, require finesse. And…” He lined up a second putt. “…as you may already be aware, I’m rather good at finessing.”

  “Which would be the reason you’ve been married so many cumulative years?”

  James smiled, if a little thinly. “I didn’t claim to have inherited the endurance gene.” Easily sinking another putt, he laid down the putting iron and settled on the sofa. “Any chance you’re going to offer me something to drink?”

  “I can get you a cup of coffee,” Bryce offered, not entirely comfortable with this man who was his father.

  “How about something with a little more punch?”

  “I’ll ask Nell to put in some flavored creamer.”

  James didn’t seem to be in the mood for humor, didn’t even appear to notice his son’s efforts to gain a smile from him.

  “Maybe Adam left something potable in the minibar. I’ll check.”

  “Never mind.” James stood and Bryce thought his father meant to leave, but instead he simply crossed to the windows and looked out. “Do you ever go down on the Riverwalk to watch the fire?”

  For a few years now, Providence had experienced a revival of interest in the downtown area, marked by the Riverwalk and a nighttime display of fire on the water. “Occasionally. I saw it on the opening night because Granddad was one of the honorary ribbon cutters. It was a pretty impressive show from beginning to end. You should have been there.”

  Bryce hadn’t meant it as a comment on a lifetime of should-have-beens, but James’s shoulders sagged as if the words were his epitaph. “So,” he said, straightening his posture, but still turned away toward the midday brightness beyond the office building. “Are you going to elaborate on your little personnel problem or do I have to guess what has you all stirred up?”

  “You don’t really seem to be in the mood for guessing games,” Bryce observed, taking the place his father had vacated on the sofa. “Something on your mind?”

  James turned then, observed his middle son with a respectful affection. “You sounded very much like your mother just then,” he said with a bittersweet smile. “Mariah got very uncomfortable any time I wasn’t my usual playful self.”

  “I’m not uncomfortable,” Bryce said, although he was. “I’m just wondering what’s going on with you and why you’re here.”

  “You’re wondering why I’m bothering you now when I’ve never bothered with you before.” James turned back to the window, leaving Bryce to wonder how this man who knew so little about him, who’d been mainly absent from his life, could read a thought he hadn’t been fully aware he was even thinking.

  “I’m fifty-four, Bryce. A little late to be facing up to responsibilities, but maybe not too late to be accountable for my failures.” He stood there another few seconds in a silence strained with inadequacy, then turned around with a laugh. “Well, this is not the light lunch conversation I had in mind when I dropped by. Let’s go to that gourmet coffee shop down the block, grab a couple of cappuccinos, walk the Riverwalk, and talk about the Red Sox roster. Perhaps, by the time we get back, I’ll have figured out how to resolve my melancholy and you’ll know what to do about your problem with Lara.”

  Bryce frowned. “I didn’t mention any names.”

  “Sometimes what isn’t said is louder than what is.” James moved toward the door, smiling now, clearly expecting Bryce to get up and join him. “Oh, don’t look so violated. There’s only one woman I’ve ever observed who could get you riled.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you’d ever observed me enough to know.”

  James’s expression turned unexpectedly gentle. “Well, if you thought that, you’d be wrong.”

  Bryce wanted to believe his father had always been there in the background of his life, observing, watching over him like some benign spirit guardian, prevented by formidable forces from taking part in his son’s life. But it seemed safer not to go any deeper, to lift the conversation back to a less risky, more comfortable level, even if that meant discussing an uncomfortable subject. “So you think the problem I’m pondering has something to do with Lara Richmond?”

  “I’d bet the price of two cappuccinos on it.” He put his hand on the doorknob and grinned. “So, Bryce, who’s buying? You or me?”

  Two could play at this game, Bryce thought as he pushed up from the couch and moved leisurely toward the door. “I’m buying, Dad,” he said. “But only if you’ll do me a huge favor.”

  James looked unaccountably pleased, but wary. “And that would be…?”

  “Fill in for me at a meeting, tonight.”

  “Sure, I can do that. What time should I be here?”

  “Seven. Except the meeting isn’t here. It’s at Mrs. Fairchild’s home.”

  “Ilsa Fairchild?” And there was a note of interest, a tone of pleasure in the words.

  Bryce congratulated himself on his own observation skills. “Lara and I are cochairs with Mrs. Fairchild for the Cinderella Ball, which happens this Saturday in Newport. The committee meeting is tonight at seven and, while I hate to miss it, I can’t be in two places at once.”

  “Where else do you have to be?”

  Bryce swept his hand in a gesture that encompassed the office and the piles of paperwork on his desk. “Look around you, Dad,” he said. “I realize now why Adam worked such long hours. I can’t get anything done for all the company meetings I have to fit into a week. This is going to help me out a lot.”

  “What about Lara? Can she not make the committee meeting, either?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  Looking somewhat skeptical, but also more enthusiastic than at any time since his arrival, James opened the door. “Won’t Ilsa and the other committee members think it odd for me to show up in your place?”

  “No.” Bryce caught hold of the heavy, wooden door and held it for his dad. “Just say we couldn’t get a baby-sitter.”

  Chapter Six

  Even before she looked up, Lara was somehow aware of his presence. Perhaps because he was on her mind so much of late. For at least a day after the fiasco at Dellasandro’s, she was too furious
with him to think about anything else. Then, when logic trumped anger, her thoughts circled and centered on those few moments under the table when she and Bryce and Cal had shared something intangible, but disconcertingly real. Even now, just thinking about it a whole weekend and an entire Monday morning later, her cheeks flushed hot with an awareness she still couldn’t quite define. Which only meant her decision to keep a considerable distance—at least the length of Nell’s office—between her life and his was a sound one.

  But Bryce, of course, didn’t know she’d made that decision because here he stood, lounging in her doorway as if he had nowhere else to be and nothing better to do. “May I help you?” she asked, barely letting her gaze flick to him before she returned it to the notes in front of her.

  “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

  Drat! She’d forgotten she was wearing the half-moon reading glasses and had to fight the sudden vain impulse to jerk them off her nose. “The things you don’t know about me, Bryce, are legion and likely to remain so.” She narrowed her eyes on the calculator, then penciled a sum into the wrong column. Why couldn’t he go stand in someone else’s doorway? “Was there something you wanted?”

  “Your attention would be a nice start,” he suggested.

  She laid down the pencil, removed the glasses and folded her hands on top of the desk, granting his request, but only just.

  “I’d like to talk to you.”

  She arched her brows, indicating that she resented the interruption of her work, but giving him tacit approval to proceed. His jaw tightened, but then he smiled, and she had to remind herself to breathe. Really, the man was too handsome to live. For her money, he’d be worth more as a statue.

  “About tonight.”

  Tonight? Then with an inconvenient rush of memory and its accompanying blush, she knew. “I’ve already asked Bridget to watch Cal,” she hurried to say. “So there will be no need to take him along with me to tonight’s committee meeting. And I won’t need to ride with you, either. I’ll drive myself.”

  His tawny eyebrows rose. “You don’t have to go to the meeting at all, Lara. In fact, it will be best if you’re not there.”

  Unaccountably, she was angry at being cut out. “So,” she said. “Did you un-volunteer me from the committee altogether because of one unfortunate incident? Which, I might add, was mostly your fault?”

  He leaned a brawny shoulder against the door-frame, looking puzzled by her reaction, but unperturbed. “Not at all. You just don’t have to go to the meeting tonight.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I’ve found someone to go in our place.”

  “That was high-handed of you, Bryce.” Then she paused. “Our place? You’re not going either?”

  “Dad’s going to fill in for us tonight.”

  “Your dad?”

  “It’s an experiment,” Bryce explained. “I’m trying my hand at a little matchmaking.”

  “What about Monica?”

  His unrepentant shrug indicated mischief was afoot. “She’s in Newport and unfortunately, Benson’s having a little trouble with the Rolls. Could be seven-thirty or later before they make it back to the Hall. Too late, I’m afraid, for her to accompany Dad to the committee meeting.”

  It was a rather sweet gesture, she thought, trying to break up his father’s engagement. Misguided and stupid, but still rather sweet. “You probably shouldn’t interfere in your father’s affairs.”

  “This isn’t interference. It’s an opportunity for me to avoid another boring meeting, and for Dad to spend a little time out from under his fiancée’s thumb. Not to mention, I’ve single-handedly freed up an entire evening for you.” He held up his hand as if he expected a round of applause. “And yes, you can show your appreciation by letting me take you and Cal out for pizza.”

  Her mood, currently on the upswing, took a soaring leap of pleasure and crashed right into reality. “Cal and I will be eating in tonight,” she said firmly. And every other night. No way was she was going anywhere tonight but to bed. And absolutely no way was she allowing Bryce Braddock into her private life. “Thanks, anyway.”

  “Tomorrow night, then.”

  “No.”

  “Wednesday.”

  “No.”

  “Thursday.”

  “No, and not Friday, Saturday, Sunday or any other day.”

  “He’s just a little boy, Lara. He overate. That doesn’t mean he’ll throw up every time he eats at a restaurant.”

  “I’m not interested in putting it to a test, and that’s not the reason.”

  He crossed his arms and his lips formed an attentive smile, offering her the same tacit invitation to explain that she’d earlier offered him.

  But she was smarter than he was, and she had no intention of explaining. She imitated the Mona Lisa, then picked up the reading glasses as if she were about to put them back on and dropped her gaze back to the column of figures in front of her. She needed to erase that last wrong entry, but was darned if she’d do it with him watching.

  “Lara?”

  She tried to look surprised that he was still there in her doorway. “Was there something else you wanted?”

  “The list is growing by the second,” he said, and the look in his eyes made her foolish heart jump. “For starters, you can tell me why you’re so angry with me over something that was not mostly my fault. Or yours, for that matter.”

  “Angry?” She laughed. “I’m not—”

  “Let’s cut straight to the chase here, Lara. You’ve been raining on my parade regularly since the first moment we met, but until last Wednesday night, you didn’t turn into an ice cube every time I looked in your general direction. So I’ll ask again, why are you angry with me?”

  She thought about denying it. She thought about saying she didn’t know what he was talking about. She even thought about accusing him of imagining a cold front where there was nothing but lukewarm indifference. But in the end, she laid down the glasses and her pencil, looked him square in the eye, and told him the truth, mostly. “I’m not interested in a personal relationship with you, Bryce. Outside of this office, my life is my own. I’m not looking for anyone to share it. And right now, it’s particularly important that Cal doesn’t form attachments to someone who isn’t going to be there for him later. Do you understand?”

  He straightened slowly, and she was afraid that if he challenged her on any point, she’d lose her justification for all. But he merely walked to her desk and, putting his palms flat on the scattered papers, he leaned in, uncomfortably, disconcertingly close. “I understand, Lara, that you and I will have to agree to disagree about this. Because I am interested in you, both in this office and out of it, and I’m giving you fair warning that I mean to do everything within my power to change your mind.”

  Her heart thudded in her chest like a sledgehammer, her throat went suddenly, painfully dry, but she didn’t blink. She swallowed hard, but she didn’t blink. “You always have overestimated your charm,” she said in a tone as light as air, but not nearly as substantial. “But it is a free country and you’re allowed to make a fool of yourself in, pretty much, any way you choose.”

  His smile was easy, as if he read her fear like a songbook. “See there? We’re in agreement on something right from the start.”

  She picked up the glasses and slid them on the tip of her nose, hoping to dismiss him with the gesture. “You may have time to waste on trivialities, but I have work to do.”

  “Ah, yes. Work, the panacea of a lonely heart.”

  “Platitudes,” she retorted smoothly. “The refuge of a banal mind.”

  He laughed, straightening and giving her room to breathe again. “You know, Lara, when I walked in here I didn’t know what this was about, but now I believe I do. Who would have thought an ice queen like you would fall in love with a guy like me?”

  She fumbled with the pencil, making a long, leaded streak across the page. “Wh-what?”

  “And to think
that all this time I believed Adam was your man.”

  Now she was angry. “I used to believe you were borderline crazy, too,” she said, cooling his amusement with a chilly gaze. “But now I know you’re certifiably insane. There was nothing between your brother and me, but a professional and personal friendship. There is nothing between you and me except the barest thread of tolerance, and that’s about to snap.” She sucked in a deep and outraged breath. “And just so you’re clear on this, love is the last emotion I’m ever likely to feel in connection with you.”

  Darn the man. His smile only deepened, made him look annoyingly appealing, frustratingly handsome, infuriatingly confident. “Well said, Ms. Richmond, and duly noted. But since you’re obviously not indifferent to me—which by the way is the true opposite of love—I’ll just take my suspicions back to my own office and figure out my next move.”

  “Just so long as your next move takes you out of my office.”

  “On my way.” But he paused in the doorway. “And I do understand about Cal. But as I was a little boy once myself and facing similar circumstances, I can tell you the issue in his mind isn’t who’s going to be there tomorrow, but who’s there for him today.”

  He walked out then, leaving her shaking, furious and, as reluctant as she was to admit it, scared. Because somehow—she wasn’t sure how he’d done it—he’d just breached her defenses and opened up a possibility she couldn’t, wouldn’t allow to be true.

  BRYCE KICKED BACK in the chair, propped his feet on the windowsill, put his hands behind his head and gave some serious thought to the past few minutes in Lara’s office. Not what he’d anticipated, not even close. He’d gone there to try and clear the air, to apologize, if pressed, for whatever she imagined he’d done. The last thing he’d expected was the blush, that bare tinge of pink, that utterly beguiling touch of color in her cheeks, when he mentioned the glasses. Who would have thought Lara would care that he’d noticed?

  And then she’d jumped right from rejecting his offer to buy pizza to rejecting him as a suitor. Amazing.